Few films have been as truthful in
their choice of titles as the 3 idiots because in this article, I will prove to
you what assholes the three protagonists in the movie really were. “Wait, what?”
you say, “Three protagonists?” I say, “You heard me right.” The film was
supposed to be about three of the most
self-obsessed wayward idiotic samples of men you could ever find in this whole
wide world and who lay siege to the entire society to serve their own interests
without considering what harm they are bringing about in the process,
all the while justifying their foolish and evil acts to be in the larger
interest of the society. And you see this kind of generalization again &
again in the movie, just because a stupid filmmaker tried to adapt a fun novel
into a more dramatic crowd-pleasing movie meant for nitwits who know nothing
about anything really, let alone engineering.
A movie, where Rancho is the beginning & Rancho is the end. I am
tempted to replace “r” in Rancho with “b”. If you aren’t, you will feel the
urge shortly after reading this article…
1. Farhan Qureshi aka Fucktard
Farhan is a dick. Let us call him
Fucktard from now on & have a look at his fucktardness chronologically.
- Farhan has no gratitude for his parents who sacrificed their own comfort and installed the one AC they could afford into Farhan’s room. Have you seen a bigger dick? See my point is if Fucktard didn’t want to be an engineer, he should have come clean off it in front of his parents. He owed them that. His parents’ nights might have been much more soothing and comfortable in the sweltering Delhi summers had he pointed out earlier that he didn’t have any interest in studying hard and hence had no need of an AC.
- A case can
be made that Fucktard’s Hitler father was kind of an asshole too since he
thought his Fucktard deserved an AC only if he could study well to be an
engineer (He doesn’t say this but he believes so, in all probability). But what
about the seat Fucktard has so shamelessly wasted? There is no defense for
that. Some other eager-to-be-engineer lost his seat because of Fucktard and his
parents. Not cool!
- Even after growing up & becoming a photographer, Fucktard displays anti-social tendencies. I am talking about the airplane emergency landing incident. That is the first scene of the movie. Seriously what kind of asshole does that and delays an entire flight solely for meeting a friend who has been out of touch for like, only some years? He wasted both time and money of his fellow passengers in doing this. This kind of non-concern for others by convincing oneself that one’s needs are foremost and to their end, all is fair; is exactly the adage gangsters, criminals and even terrorists live by. Not very good material for a movie protagonist.
- What makes Fucktard even more dangerous is that he is a follower- someone who has to follow a particular individual to have some meaning to their lives without which they cannot remain sane. A leader provides them a purpose, a direction into which they can channel their energies but always play second fiddle to the leader. The leader himself or herself might be a do-gooder or a trouble-maker- we will get to that; but that doesn’t diminish the potential danger such followers might pose to the society. We see these kinds of followers everywhere- inside politics, mafia, religion, etc.;who need an idea to keep them going, however nonsensical the idea may be, as long as it keeps them involved it keeps them alive!
2. Raju Rastogi aka Raju
Raju seems a very benign and
no-nonsense type of guy. He is poverty-stricken, honest & hard-working
pyjama-kurta wearing person. You couldn’t possibly think that he is a jerk with
no will power, that he easily bends opinion about a person on the basis of a
personal favour & that he is not a good son at all. Well, I am here to
change your thinking.
- Raju commits an attempted suicide. Just because he was being rusticated from some Imperial College or something. Many would say that that is reality and yes, people do commit suicides because of the different pressures they encounter. But let us talk about Raju. He has grown in a poor house-hold, probably faced numerous hardships like lack of money, lack of proper food, his father’s illness & his mother’s constant nagging. That ought to have turned his nerves to nerves of steel. This weak-willed behavior by such students, even in reality, has to stop and has to stop soon. Seriously, how can things be so bad that they think up such a stupid way to get out of it all? Their selfish suicidal acts end up harming their parents, their college & serve as bad example for other weak-willed students too.
- Raju easily bends his opinion of Rancho just because Rancho helped to bring his paralytic father to the hospital on time. I am not saying he should not be thankful. By all means, he is welcome to do so. But Raju had rightly spotted all evil things Rancho stood for, before Rancho did him a favour. Now suddenly Rancho is a good guy and all his acts have to be forgiven with this new insight that he helped a friend out. “Uske mujhpe bahut ehsaan hain. Main use daga nahi de sakta!” I am sorry but this is the basis of many criminals going scott-free because nobody dares speak against them because they had helped them out in some way or the other. This is also the foundation of the minister-gangster nexus. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Probably, but big things have small beginnings.
- So we have Raju, who has to get a good job to marry off his sister, take care of his mother & pay the bills for his father’s treatment. You see it is family all the way for this guy. So after getting a good job, he will probably live together with his parents and his wife. No? Wrong! Raju lives in Delhi’s Vasant Vihar only with his wife. He has abandoned his parents because we do not see them anywhere during the brief scene we get to see him inside his new house. They must have been staying in some other room, you say? Probably, but shouldn’t we get to see how the job improved his situation? It was a major concern for him, wasn’t it during his engineering days. Shouldn’t viewers get to see how he reversed his misery? Or the filmmakers probably aren’t very intelligent & the thought didn’t strike them but Raju still lives with his parents. Either way, Raju is boring as hell. Fucktard was much more interesting.
3. Rancho aka Phunsukh
Rancho is the leader that Raju & Fucktard
blindly follow. What he says is gospel, what he does are virtues and what he
instructs are commandments; as per the other two idiots. One can only enumerate
a few of Rancho’s esteemed accomplishments in such limited space.
- First of all, Rancho…, ah well let us deny him such a cool name that rhymes with an Indian swear word; from now on he is Phunsukh for our purposes. Phunsukh doesn’t care a hoot about other people’s pain. Agreed it is wrong to rag juniors but what is the punishment for little ragging? The correct answer is get the culprit’s dick electrocuted. Yeah, right! That is what Phunsukh does- on his first day of college. Is it just me who feels that this guy is going to be the most serious criminal later on?
- Phunsukh opens up anything mechanical he finds. Yes, he doesn’t care about things like property, ownership or rights. He is awesome, that is that. He also breaks in other people’s houses, steals question papers, & rides a scooter inside a friggin’ hospital. All is fair in a film hell bent on portraying him in a positive light.
- Phunsukh is quick to fix blame- like a kangaroo court. When a student commits suicide(?) because his professor didn’t consider his impractical design (which was really impractical, because the student wasn’t able to make it fly), he blames the professor. It is Engineering, for Christ’s sake! If you cannot perform, should you commit suicide? The student has to take the blame, not the professor.
- Phunsukh mocks others- be it Fucktard’s father (he laughs at his face when the father is damn serious), Raju’s mother (making fun of her constantly reminding Raju about the price of vegetables) & Silencer (Phunsukh teaches him a lesson in a way highly disproportionate to Silencer’s mistake, making him an object of ridicule in a huge gathering of people). Hey, but that was all comic relief. Let us forget all that, shall we?
- Perhaps the most serious crime Phunsukh has committed is his taking the degree in the name of Ranchoddas Chanchad, who is another guy; and who is winning “highway tenders” on the basis of the engineering degree. But after all we have seen above, you would expect that from someone like Phunsukh. What does he care if a fraud builds highways seriously endangering life and property? It is not like Phunsukh himself hadn’t displayed I-don't-care-a-a-damn attitude time and again!
- Moreover, he abandons all his friends and the love of his life, to a life of ignorance and misery just because of a stupid promise he had made to the real Rancho’s father. Don’t you think he owed his friends the truth? Indeed, he did; after all they had been his partners in numerous crimes.
I seriously hate the movie and its’
characters and the fact that they ruined Five Point Someone, a much better
story than 3 Idiots!!
Lastly, why the hell did I spend so
much time and effort reviewing a, in my opinion, mediocre movie? Well, only a
mediocre movie offers enough scope for a writer. I could have discussed
Inception, instead, but my heart would not have been in it!
